


Somewhere Within

by ossseous (ozean)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, Kissing, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Season/Series 03, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7778803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozean/pseuds/ossseous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver has a bad night and Barry tries to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere Within

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever write anything that doesn't have an angst tag probably not.

It was the worst kind of hope.

The kind that dwindled down with distance and separation.  It came accompanied by that painful relief of moving on and the knowledge that each minute of being apart meant one more minute of being okay.

It was the worst because of how quickly it could snap back into place.  With just the sound of their voice or the meager sight of them, it could come reeling back the way a breath rushes to be sucked in, inhaled and savored.

And oh did Barry savor the sight of Oliver.  Even if he was stumbling, even if he was drunk, even if his hand grappled out to find some sentiment of stability on the rough brick wall of some dive bar he just got kicked out of.  That feeling, that hope, threatened to swell and break within him, and he refused to let that happen.

Because he knew Oliver did not savor the sight of him.  He couldn’t even let himself be surprised when Oliver aimed a jabbing pointing finger at him with his free hand.  It wasn’t well planned because it jostled him enough to almost make him list forward and nearly topple to the ground before catching himself.  “What are you doing here?”

Barry buried his hands in his pockets, trying to ignore the gnawing sympathy that clawed at him, egged him to take care of Oliver, coddle him and treat him so gently.  Treat him the way Oliver never allowed people to treat him.  Luckily he got distracted as they both nearly jumped at the sound of a bustling group of coeds as they spilled out of the bar and into the parking lot.  For a second he was glad he wore his civvies. “Your friends are looking for you,” he finally said.

“Yeah, well…” And Oliver gestured vaguely to the air around him, and Barry thought that was likely meant to translate to _here I am,_ but he was not entirely sure.  He could have asked, tried to draw the moment out, but he chose instead to approach Oliver cautiously, hands out in surrender before gingerly taking Oliver’s wrist and hooking his arm around his shoulders to steer him towards the straggling cars remaining in the parking lot.

“Get in a fight?” He asked, looking at the eye that was already starting to swell and the smear of blood under his nose, matting into his stubble.

“You should see the other guy,” Oliver muttered.  But Barry saw the angry red sores that bloomed across the fist dangling over his shoulder, and he was pretty sure that he probably didn’t want to see the other guy, didn’t want a reminder of the things Oliver was capable of.

He got Oliver back to the loft much more slowly than he would have preferred.  Even if just speeding him home seemed like the simplest solution, he didn’t feel much incentivizing Oliver’s gut to vomit.  Luckily though Oliver had driven a car instead of a motorcycle and even if he wasn’t the most experienced at driving cars, he managed to get Oliver home the old fashioned way.

Once they found themselves indoors, he dropped Oliver onto the couch. But not until after their little adventure of actually getting up to the right floor.  He called it an adventure in his head so he didn’t have to think about how annoying and painful and unnecessarily complicated it was to get Oliver not just to the door, but through it and past the alarm.  Oliver couldn’t remember the passcode immediately and by the time Oliver stuttered it out, Barry was unsure if he said “five” or “nine” and resorted to having to use both when his first attempt failed.

But laid out on the couch, Oliver finally sank down.  It was as if any fight that had been in him from the night’s prior events—whatever those events had been—was drawn out of him the second he collapsed back on the couch.  Barry settled on the floor next to it, propping his back against the seat of the couch and taking in the apartment he knew wasn’t even really Oliver’s.

He was thinking about how he should just leave, get out before he floundered, when he heard Oliver speak up.

“I messed up,” he said, the words whispered behind him.  Barry, unable to remain unfazed and unmoved by that voice, had to turn to him.  Had to look at him.  He had to be greeted by the sight of those wet eyes, not heavy enough to shed tears but not dry enough to hide the clawing ache that Barry knew simmered in the back of Oliver’s thoughts.

“No one else knows you were there, and I won’t tell anyone,” he said.

“But I know.”

But he wondered if Oliver would remember all of it in the morning.  He turned to face the couch, rested his elbows on the cushion next to where Oliver kept his own arm tucked tight against his side.  Would he remember the bar fight?  Remember the booze and the neon lights and the damp streets and the fact that, for one ugly moment, he might have slipped back into the life he knew before the island?  Where a drink and a good party was more than enough to liven up the dull monotony of what felt like a meaningless life.  Was he scared of that Oliver Queen who was still just a boy?

He pressed a finger along Oliver’s arm in some kind of lapse in judgment.  He let the pad catch on the fabric of his sleeve.  It was meant to sooth Oliver, but perhaps it just soothed him more.

“No one expects you to be able to hold yourself together every minute of your life, Ollie.”

“I do.”  Oliver paused, swallowing thickly, eyes searching Barry’s face for something.  Maybe it was something Barry couldn’t give him.  Anger or disgust or loathing.  “I have to.”

“You really don’t.”

Oliver only stared for a moment after that and chose not to respond.  Instead he turned his head to stare up at the towering ceiling of the loft.  As if he were resigned and ready to let his memories of the night wash away with his ebbing misery.  “Goodnight, Barry.”

Barry knew it wasn’t really a goodbye.  Rather it was more of a suggestion for him to leave.  But part of him wanted to stay, to linger and know that darkness, learn it better than anyone else could wish to.  Would it consume him, or would he consume it?  He didn’t know.

There wasn’t a point though.  Because Barry knew that he wasn’t the one for Oliver.  Not meant to be his light, not meant to know that darkness.  That it would be someone else’s role to play, no matter how much he longed to take the part.

He sighed, pulling his hand away and breaking off the contact between them was almost painful for him.  And perhaps it was another lapse in judgement, but before he could stand, he leaned over Oliver and pressed his lips to his.

He didn’t try to read into the little things that followed.  Refused to let his mind run away with the details as Oliver’s own mouth fell open against his own.  As a tongue—sour with whisky and blood—traced against his bottom lip.  As a hand, calloused and fingers worn by bowstrings, reached up to slowly cup the back of his head and thread fingers through his hair.

He couldn’t read into it because it was just a kiss.  And while a kiss could mean everything, Barry also knew that a kiss could mean nothing.  So he pulled just an inch away and regarded the man beneath him.

And for a split second he wanted to lean forward again and draw out the aching kisses he longed to pull from Oliver.  More than anything, he wanted to know the gasp of shared breath and whispered names and desperate grasping fingers.  But he pulled back from that momentary break, terrified of how the hope for opportunity had dangled enticingly before him and how eager he had been to snatch it. 

He wished he never knew the feeling of that hope in the first place.  Because he knew it with Iris, knew it with Oliver.  And he wondered how many more would make him feel it too.  And in the end, make him know what it meant to be unlovable.

“Get some sleep,” he said.  And he suddenly wanted to leave.  Go back to Central City.  Mend the parts of him that were breaking once again so easily.

Oliver shut his eyes on a sigh and nodded.  He pulled his fingers from their grip, clenched so tightly at the nape of Barry’s neck.

It was only after Oliver drifted off to sleep and Barry had tugged and pulled him until he was safely laying on his side that Barry raced effortlessly from the loft and Starling City and Oliver Queen in a burst of wind and lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://ossseous.tumblr.com) yall come yell at me.


End file.
